In a frankly astounding turn of events, Debt Guard Solicitors have proposed introducing a right for big businesses to opt out of paying on time.

Read that again, because it's an almost unbelievable statement - a commercial debt recovery firm suggesting that big brands should have the opportunity to simply opt out of being punished for late payment.

Where do small businesses turn for help when they suffer due to late payment? Under new government plans, there could soon be a Small Business Conciliation Service tasked with tackling that precise problem.

That's not its official name as yet - and in fact, you could be forgiven for thinking you already know of a 'conciliation service' for small business disputes, in the form of mediation.

Premier Foods - owners of the Mr Kipling brand, along with several other household names - have encountered their fair share of negative press recently, since it emerged that they were demanding that suppliers should invest in the company in order to continue receiving orders.

Yep, that's right - suppliers to Premier Foods, many of them fairly small foodservice businesses, were apparently told that if they wanted to keep receiving future orders, they had to put their own money into Premier in the form of investment finance.

Finding a supplier for your business can be a tricky process at the best of times; so many online businesses rely heavily on customer testimonials.  So what do you do if you are a new business, say a new Debt Collection business and you want to impress potential customers?  Are you going to be honest about the fact the business is new and try and offer a great service or do you "fake it till you make it"? 

Unfortunately for many businesses trying to find a reputable debt recovery partner the latter seems to be the preferred option, with many so called debt collectors recycling or just stealing testimonials from other sources.  Now not only is this dishonest and as such contrary to the Advertising Standards Authority rules on misleading statements, it also shows a marked lack of invention and imagination.  As such, we've decided to offer a helping hand to all those debt collection companies out there with fake testimonials by providing some suggested "testimonials" of our own.